Virtual card B2B adoption is accelerating in 2026, and the reasons go well beyond the product’s long-standing reputation for control and security. A confluence of data mandates, pricing innovation, embedded payments and the emergence of agentic artificial intelligence (AI) has created what Javelin Strategy & Research describes as conditions for a genuine breakthrough in commercial payments.
The Javelin report, titled The Virtual Economy: Five Forces Driving Virtual Card Adoption in 2026, identifies Level III data enforcement, embedded payments, customised pricing, agentic AI and macroeconomic uncertainty as the five drivers converging at once. Each is worth unpacking on its own terms.
Visa’s Data Crackdown and What It Means for Virtual Card B2B Adoption
The most immediate catalyst is a change in how Visa enforces its commercial interchange rules. To qualify for reduced commercial interchange rates, businesses must supply transaction-level detail including product descriptions, quantities and total costs, what the industry calls Level III data. The requirement itself is not new, but the enforcement is.
‘Before, it was not a super well-kept secret that some of the purported Level III detail that was going through the card switches was spurious,’ said Hugh Thomas, Senior Commercial and Enterprise Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research. ‘There weren’t any real consequences if what you were providing wasn’t accurate and usable.’
That has changed. Under the updated approach, if any components of the submitted Level III data do not align (for instance, if invoice details do not match the amount charged) the transaction loses its eligibility for the commercial payments discount. Optimized Payments reported that Visa rolled out its Product 3 interchange rate changes and data quality enforcement under its Commercial Enhanced Data Program (CEDP) on 17 October 2025.
The timing matters for virtual cards specifically. According to Finix, Visa retired Level 2 processing as of January 2026, meaning businesses can no longer rely on an intermediate tier: it is Level III or nothing for those seeking enhanced rates. Finix also notes that business credit cards are now eligible for CEDP enhanced rates under the programme. Virtual cards, which travel with structured data throughout the full transaction cycle, are well positioned to meet that bar.
Thomas argues this will create pressure across the industry to invest properly in data infrastructure. ‘It will compel people to make an effective Level III provision solution, and whenever one of the switches does this, the other benefits from it,’ he said. ‘It tends to be a tide that rises all boats.’
Embedded Payments, Agentic AI and the Shift in How Authorisation Works
Alongside the data mandate, the way payments are authorised inside corporate environments is changing. Businesses increasingly expect to pay directly from the systems where they already operate (procurement modules, ERP platforms, sector-specific applications) without a separate payment decisioning step downstream.
Thomas described how this changes the calculus: ‘Before, if you bought something via the procurement module on your ERP, you or someone further down the value chain would then make the call in terms of whether to pay by check, ACH or card. Now, if a virtual card is the only thing that gives you Level III detail and it travels all throughout the full cycle of transaction, someone in the payment strategy team within the buying entity is going to say anything with this vendor now has to be paid with card.’
Virtual card B2B adoption stands to benefit further as agentic AI becomes more capable of evaluating payment instruments autonomously. ‘Agentic AI is a great way to just enable all that,’ Thomas said. ‘To say if X, Y, and Z criteria for instrument choice for the buyer are met, then go out to the counterparty to see whether their criteria for instrument choice are also being met, and if so, then initiate the transaction.’ In the past, many organisations defaulted to ACH or checks simply because they lacked the time to evaluate chargeback capabilities, Level III requirements or supplier setup complexity. AI agents can handle that analysis systematically.
A third driver is Visa’s introduction of mechanisms that allow buyers and sellers to negotiate mutually agreeable interchange rates. Customised pricing removes one of the long-standing obstacles to using virtual cards with regular, high-volume suppliers, the concern that interchange costs make them unworkable at scale. ‘With the pricing being more collaborative, you may say: on a go-forward basis, let’s pay this with virtual cards, because we’ve agreed the pricing fits both of our needs,’ Thomas said.
The fifth force is macroeconomic. In environments of higher weighted average cost of capital and slower cash conversion cycles, virtual cards can function as a working capital tool for both sides of a transaction. A supplier paid by virtual card in ten days avoids waiting the 45 to 60 days typical of other settlement methods, while a buyer can preserve days payable outstanding by settling on day ten and then using the card cycle and grace period on top. ‘Virtual cards can be a working capital accelerant for the supplier,’ Thomas said.
Thomas’s closing challenge to payments professionals is direct: ‘If your strategy in virtual cards doesn’t anticipate or at least take into account all of these to some degree, you may be missing a trick.’ With Visa’s CEDP enforcement already live and Level 2 processing retired, the data infrastructure question is not theoretical, it is already on the table for any business seeking commercial interchange savings.
